The Power of Creative Destruction: Economic Upheaval and the Wealth of Nations

Please join us for a conversation with Philippe Aghion (professor at INSEAD and the Collège de France), Catherine Mann (external member of the Bank of England) and Ayhan Kose (Chief Economist, the World Bank). The conversation will resolve around the themes from Professor Aghion’s new book, The Power of Creative Destruction: Economic Upheaval and the Wealth of Nations. INSEAD professor John Fernald will moderate the conversation as well as the discussion with the audience.

Professor Aghion and his coauthors Céline Antonin and Simon Bunel address deep challenges to our economic system, including stagnating growth, rising inequality, environmental crises, and the difficult adjustment to the COVID-19 pandemic. They argue that the right response to these challenges is not radical change or revolution, but rather to create a better capitalism. They call for understanding and harnessing the power of creative destruction—innovation that disrupts, but that over the past two hundred years has also lifted societies to previously unimagined prosperity. Achieving these goals requires state intervention with the appropriate checks and balances to simultaneously foster ongoing economic creativity while managing the social disruption that innovation leaves in its wake.